This week I have a very tricky mystery object for you:
Obviously it’s a bat, but do you have any idea which kind?
As always, you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below. Have fun!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
This week I have a very tricky mystery object for you:
Obviously it’s a bat, but do you have any idea which kind?
As always, you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below. Have fun!
Zygoma 
A foxy looking scream for fruit, but other than that I can only say it just looks like it’s sp., sp., sp., spitting for identification.
Egad – whatever he is, he needs to see a dentist! He? Maybe – not?
Paolo, you should have saved this one for Halloween.
there was a 1977 hong kong movie about stealing a soviet plane that clint eastwood had a variation of called “firefox.”
Copied photo, enlarged, lightened. Maybe this is a lady bat?
Is it looking a bit pale? Does it make tents?
Or is it a macrochiropteran?
It doesn’t make tents and although it’s quite big, it’s still micro…
Hmmm…. Stumped.
Looking at ear size now and teeth. Seems that vampire species have two (more?) prominent incisors. This one has incisors that are visible, but the canines are wow! Can someone tell me the size? What’s the scale on the photo? I think in inches . . . this is centimeters, centimetres?
Scale is in cm
Judging from the size of an average staple, I’d say the scale was in centimetres. So forearm length is approx. 96 mm, which narrows it down considerably. But I am having difficulty with this one, not least of all because every time I look at the picture, I think “Boom, boom!”
Thanks, Tony. I thought it was centimeters. Makes this beast, I think, not big enough to be flying foxes? Also ears are too small for ff?
I don’t know about ear size but overall, I suspect if it is a frugivorous/macrobat then it is one of the smaller ones.
Also, if I am reading it correctly, the tail appears to have a membrane between it and the hindlimbs, which would then in flight spread out and create the characteristic “scoop” with which many of the insectivorous/microbats use to catch insects.
If I am right then, though the pic does not show it clearly, its nose is of the “misshapen” sort that helps the microbats focus their ultrasound chirrups when hunting (flying foxes do not, in general, use sonar/echolocation).
Of course I insist that you consider the possibility that this time, as is so often the case, I am utterly wrong about everything.
Palfreyman, the nose really confuses me on this one! But thanks for the nice tip on the tail/legs construction.
There is no diastema between the upper fist incisor. This character occurs in Phyllostomidae but I don’t know if it is specific to this family. Long-snouted or nectar bat ?
Well, it’s not in the Phyllostomidae if that helps…